


Gotta Like What You Do

by silverpaper_toffeepaper



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harem, Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverpaper_toffeepaper/pseuds/silverpaper_toffeepaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Irony has served you well. Thanks to irony, you’re in the sexiest bedazzled alien leisure suit ever to gently encompass human buttock, bereft of sunglasses, turntables, and dignity, surrounded by trolls in much the same who have no appreciation for the art of irony and all the scathe in the universe for your lack of expertise in the rental bosom buddy department. You are some kind of ironic mad genius, all right. Snaps for Dave.</i>
</p>
<p>----------------------</p>
<p>Dave Strider makes his debut at the pale harem of Warlord Karkat. It could've been worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotta Like What You Do

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Melt Me, Mold Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1752809) by [BirchBow (chaoticTenebrism)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticTenebrism/pseuds/BirchBow). 



> Everyone's definitely of age, the only cuddles are absolutely nonsexual, but Dave is not there entirely of his own will and the setup is the wonky skeevy bullshit staple of classical adventure fiction, hence the tag.

In a lot of ways it’s like being in a daycare center, but for mistresses. Everyone has their little cliques, which stake out their preferred territories with smiles that promise a wedgie if you try and steal it first. You’re not allowed anywhere without supervision—you’re not allowed anywhere at all, really—and you’re in deep shit if you knock someone’s teeth out for making fun of your accent.

On the bright side—because you’re just a glimmering little ray of sunshine like that—nobody’s allowed to hit you either, the food’s decent as long as you never ask what it’s made of, and the only weird-as-in-gross smells here are sopor and the occasional waft of alien sex, which you have thus far successfully never eyewitnessed. Downsides include being surrounded by trolls, being a bazillion light-years from home, extended lessons on hair petting and hug techniques, and so much pink, white, and red that you feel like you’ve been eaten by a sentient wave of Valentine’s Day decorations, because those are the theme colors of Warlord Karkat’s pale harem.

Oh, yeah, and you’re the new and exotic human addition to an infamous alien overlord’s favorite harem. Career Day didn’t cover all sorts of options for a hot piece of ass like you.

It’s not your first night in the G-Rated Gangbang Room, but it _is_ the first time since you were deemed ‘trained enough’ that Count Karkatula is likely to show up. You’re cool like ice, like wintergreen Altoids, like Flintstones push-up pops. Chief Heavy Petter Gamzee Makara gave you the go-ahead, after all. You got this on lockdown. Your task for the evening is to lounge adorably in the pillow pit, ready and waiting to be presented to Dear Leader properly. The other bromantical courtesans would appreciate it more if you never showed up at all—you’re here as a novelty more than anything else, and they’re convinced you’re going to make them look bad—but your Pretty Woman 101 instructor has been clear on the protocol for fresh meat.

Well. Clear-ish. Whatever the madame of the kiss-it-better bordello takes that leaves him high as balls twenty-four-seven (or however long an alien day-night-whatever is), you want some of that shit yesterday. The other trolls are scattered around, occupied with, like, knitting and shit (Alternian hobbies can get fucking weird, you don’t look too closely), but Gamzee’s sprawled on the floor near the front entrance, where he’s been flexing each of his fingers one joint at a time in apparent fascination for over an hour. This is 100% typical for him when he’s not being all Jedi Master of Motherfucking Touching And Shit—which is not the most fractional tiny bit less weird, bee tee dubs, because he sounds like someone tossed Samuel L. Jackson and a copy of The Wall in a blender with a fuckload of opiates. The resulting don’t-harsh-my-motherfucking-mellow drawl is basically impossible for anyone but an Alternian to understand.

Unless, you know, some hypothetical dude approaching terminal levels of cool spent his tender years ironically messing with alien musical genres of dubious repute.

Irony has served you well. Thanks to irony, you’re in the sexiest bedazzled alien leisure suit ever to gently encompass human buttock, bereft of sunglasses, turntables, and dignity, surrounded by trolls in much the same who have no appreciation for the art of irony and all the scathe in the universe for your lack of expertise in the rental bosom buddy department. You are some kind of ironic mad genius, all right. Snaps for Dave.

The waiting is grinding away your last threads of patience, and the other Playtroll Hopbeasts are starting to notice. Kanaya in particular, who’s actually kind of cool in a dorky vampire enthusiast way, is giving you The Eye. If you don’t demonstrate your complete and absolute command of chillosity in the next five seconds, you’re gonna get busted back to an additional week of training. Not that you’re especially eager to have your pale cherry popped, but another round of ‘completely normal conciliatory romantic proximity, Dave, please attempt to unclench your gluteal musculature before you injure something’ and you will die a broken man.

“So, this _particular_ harem.” The other trolls have confirmed it before, but you have legitimate concerns that your grasp of conversational Alternian is a little heavy on the lube and light on the grip strength. “My duties here are what?”

Gamzee rolls over on the floor, which is kind of like watching someone roll over a sack of clothes hangers.

“Pale like motherfuckin’ musclebeast milk, harembrother,” says Gamzee. He demonstrates the two-handed rhombus thing that you spent weeks thinking of as a troll version of ‘testicles, spectacles, wallet and watch’ before you noticed the diamond shapes on fucking _everything_ in the harem. You wait for the rest of the explanation. Then you realize he’s gone back to hand-examining like he’s totally covered every base in this rugby rink of confusion.

“And pale, when it’s not in reference to the glory and the marvel of my luscious human rump—douchefin, your grape jelly cannot handle these humps—pale means I get to hang on to my V-card.”

Now you get a boysenberry-dope stare of bafflement. You regret getting sidetracked by mouthing off at the Whining Purple People Eater again; Gamzee was quicker on the uptake last time. And the times before that, but you’re trying not to do the illustrative hand gestures where the other trolls will see and bitch at you for it again.

“Leave room for Jesus,” you explain, clarifying nothing to an audience that thinks celibacy is some kind of musical instrument. You literally cannot help yourself, though. More direct in this room full of horned judgment and you will actually be reliving a recent nightmare that ended in the sinking hellboat scene from _All Dogs Go To Heaven_. “Wear white to my wedding. Keep my purity ring. Save the duct tape and chocolates of my chastity for my special someone.”

“Like who, your left fuckin’ hand?” mutters the purple douche, with a snide look your way.

Will The Little Merhipster _ever_ realize you’re out of his league? You kiss your fingertips and waggle them in his direction. “You want this sugar, fincess, you can fill out an application like everybody else.”

Sea-Grimace shuts the fuck up.

You’ve wasted your window of focus from Gamzee again. His attention has wandered off to a pink wall hanging with bright red trim, where he gazes at it with the dreamy smile you’ve learned to associate with thoughts of Smashkat Van Tapthat. Platonic bro huglust, you think. Best friends without benefits forever. Nonfuckbuddies.

You are _almost_ sure.

You breathe in, you breathe out, you do not murder the assholes playing the weird xylophone thing in the corner. “Gamzee Jocelyn Makara. _Do I gotta do the do or is it just cuddles._ ”

“Just? Ain’t nothin’ just when it comes to gettin’ a brother’s pale on good and proper.” Gamzee stretches out, cracking his joints in ways no human should even look at. “A motherfuckin’ miracle of pale gotta be workin’ on our top diamond before he be all smooth and sweet for some real motherfuckin’ thrashing of the unrighteous. Don’t be tellin’ nobody from the red quadrant blocks...”

“Pinkie swear,” you say, nodding.

“But flush hurts on his pump biscuit when he’s been all worked up over his miracle blood color, and pitch is done harsh on a motherfucker what spends his sunups all up and untangling the motherfuckin’ miles of stickstrips what matches his pretty glance nuggets. He works his precious candy-red self so hard, nohorn bro. I reckon our choice jams are bein’ all what keeps the motherfuckin’ terrortories together besides Karkat’s bitchtits ninja conquistablizin’ skills.”

Confirmed: this is the Free Hugs room, no fucks allowed. You relax a little. “I got plenty of human horn, yo. Horn like a Three-Mile-Island Rhinoceros—“

“Shut your ignorance tunnel before we cave it in for you,” snaps a sea troll—you think her name’s Clefairy—as she tips her horns towards the front entrance.

The whole harem throws itself into frenzied adorableing while Clefairy darts out the back to let the others know. Hair is rearranged, blankets are adjusted, the knitting’s shifted so it can be put aside at a moment’s notice.

You flop back on your pillow, fling one arm over your head while spreading your knees. “Should I ask him to draw me like one of his French girls? Wait, that’s his job, he’s the diamond. Fine, someone fetch me my charcoals and clipart, let’s do this thing—”

Before you get any further, there’s the distinct rasp of boots on stone out in the hall. You’re falling beneath the harem’s notice even before Alternia’s next top badass sets foot into the room. It’s showtime.

Seen up close, without being blitzed out of your mind on a post-hostile-takeover adrenaline crash, Karkat the Great and Terrible is less Troll Darth Vader at his prime and more Troll Anakin Skywalker at his pissiest. His shoulder-cloak thing is twisted around his neck like an awkward scarf, there’s ink on his hands and at the end of his nose, and the look on his face can only be described as 'cranky alien bratling needs a nap and a cookie'.

Every other troll in the room lights up like an illegal firework going off. Yeah, you still don’t see it. Maybe there’s some kind of pale-Axe-body-spray thing going on that only works with trolls.

“Hey,” says Warlord Karkat.

The whole harem springs into action, a well-choreographed dance of trolls flinging their other duties away to flock to him like they’re about to break into song. The trolls playing their tubular bell-xylophone thing slow down to a tinkly lullaby pace at a weary wave from the Grand Snuggleupagus himself.

“Long day at the office, honey?” you ask.

His Nubs has already been blocked from view by about five trolls, not accidentally, and doesn’t seem to notice the new voice with the elegant Houston Club Rat accent.

“The fucking _worst_ ,” he says. “The seneschallenger is going to be force-fed every shit I’ve taken this week as a fitting and very generous revenge for having to exchange actual words with that ambulatory nook fungus face-to-alleged- _face._ ”

Everyone coos at him, all tousled hair and huge Skittles-on-egg-yolk eyes, while he continues ranting with decreasing coherence and volume. More trolls stream in from the other harems where you aren’t permitted to visit yet, every one of them offering a touch, a shoosh, a few words of sympathy.

It takes every shred of self-control you have not to cry _‘Daddy’s home!’_ in your best Shirley Temple falsetto, but you’ve pushed your luck enough tonight. Whatever. It wouldn’t translate anyway.

You expect Tsar Kitkat to flinch at the zerg rush of affection, or push some of them away, but he treats the troll porn edition of the Care Bear Stare like it’s a nice treat to have thirty hands and eyes all over him. Gamzee, of course, takes point on unwrapping his cloak, tossing in some shameless X-rated cheek-stroking, the hussy. Two other trolls in fleece pajama versions of stripperwear proceed with gently peeling His Gracelessness out of his hilarious World of Warcraft armor while the troll of the hour moves on to a graphic threat involving copious quantities of vomit.

As for you, you tip your head further back so you’re looking at Oskarkat the Obscene Troll Grouch upside-down. This exposes your throat, which is a classic ‘Seduce Me Now’ move, according to your teachers. That is the maximum effort you’re going for with platonically putting out. The pile is prime territory, tacitly barred to you before, and it turns out the pillows are comfy as fuck.

Even though he’s got eyes for nothing but his quote miracle-blooded top diamond unquote, Gamzee's definitely steering Conqueror Cuddleslut over to the pile, so gently that the Scarlet Bitch doesn't even notice he's being led. The rant has been reduced to dazed mumbling, but it quiets entirely when Gamzee slides his hand up his precious rosebud’s jaw. “Shoosh, brother. Got a present for a fine motherfucker sick and motherfuckin’ tired of all that coolblood poison.”

Just like that, you've got a front-row seat to scarlet bug-eyed backpedaling. “What? No, it’s fine, you’re—“

Then the Warlord finally spots the non-gray elephant in the seraglio. (And he hasn’t even seen your trunk yet, badum-tish.) You don’t react, other than to toss a sloppy salute.

You’re not expecting your hand to get snatched out of the air before you can put it down. “Yo.”

“It’s _you_ ," says Karkat. His breath hitches when he catches sight of your eyes.

You’ve been searched for weapons by a lost member of Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem while buck naked and covered in slime, yet the Warlord of Warlords looking deep into your eyes with something like awe still ranks as the weirdest moment of your post-alien-pirate-abduction life.

“Probably,” you say, as you successfully force yourself not yank free from his grip. “I’ve been a ‘you’ before. It’s all in the tone. You sexy devil, you outrageous fiend. Et cetera.”

Still staring, the Warlord sinks down into the pillow heap, your hand clutched in his own. “The alien in my colors. My favorite prize from that clusterfuck last perigee,” he says. He doesn’t seem to notice the trolls scrambling to settle around the two of you, or that more than one shoots a glance screaming _’DON’T FUCK THIS UP’_ in seventy-two point font your way. “The nooksucking shit for brains who held you last practically _begged_ me to take you off their hands.”

Yeah, that was pretty much the pinnacle of your captivity--no, the peak of your fucking lifetime. You want that moment engraved in gold. “Sure sounds like me."

You shrug. Karkat just smiles.

He’s petting you. Just your hand and wrist, no further, calluses scratching against the softer stretches of your skin. Maybe not surprisingly, he’s warmer to the touch than every other troll you’ve ever felt. The spilled ink—it’s blue, Karkat’s red, it’s actually probably blood—has dried into every crevice and wrinkle, but it pills and flakes away when he starts massaging your hand in earnest. He’s pretty good at it.

Bro, smelling like sweat and Doritos and his last blunt of the day, used to haul you down to the couch and do the same thing, scattering grime and dried blood all over his lap.

Some fucking troll you can’t see is stealth-nudging your shoulder, insistent blunt pressure that tells you jack shit if it’s not supposed to mean _’pucker your lips and significant pause blow’_. You officially takes back all previous endorsement of the cuddle harem over the other flavors. Fifteen-troll orgies would be way less creepy than the reality of the best little frathouse in Troll Texas.

Karkat keeps petting you, but the nudger doesn’t let up. Now the other kept trolls are starting to look at you like you’re supposed to hurry the fuck up with... whatever it is you’re supposed to do, even though you’re strictly forbidden from being ‘too red’ or ‘too pitch’ or ‘trying anything at all besides snuggling as needed and being the cute alien’. Clearly you're supposed to be doing _something_ besides relax into the world's most literal yet unbrolike handjob.

Fuck it. You twist your hand in Karkat’s, change his grip, and give him the most obnoxiously American human handshake possible.

“The booty is grateful,” you tell him. You bend over his knuckles and kiss a ring at random, then glance up flirtatiously though your eyelashes. Karkat blinks at you like you’ve got circus peanuts leaking out your ears. “Here to serve. Dave Strider, reporting for snugglemuffin duty—”

The tubular bells stutter to a halt.

“Fucking _WHAT?_ ”

In the abrupt stillness of the harem, Karkat’s screech is ear-shattering. Literally everyone, Warlord Karkat included, is staring at you like you told them you fucked their lusus last night. For once you are not mentally awarding yourself a high-five.

Seriously, you were planning on _not_ starting shit this time. It appears serious shit has been started anyway, even though a review of the last thirty seconds brings nothing about buckets, genitalia, or crimes of quadrant-smearing to mind. You have no idea what the fuck you just did, but at least ten sets of yellow eyes and bared teeth promise to disembowel you at the next available opportunity for it.

“I have that effect on people,” you tell them.

Cool gray hands slide under your arms. “Hey, hands off the merchandise—“

Kanaya doesn’t even look at you when she sweeps you into history’s angriest interspecies bridal carry. Other syrupy-comforting trolls block the offense of your visage from the Warlord’s view, cooing like monster pigeons from hell, while the rest maneuver behind him to make throat-slitting gestures at you where he won’t see.

As you’re hauled out the back doorway, you can hear Gamzee crooning apologetically over at his beloved. “So fuckin’ sorry, finest diamond. The new palebrother got a problem up and closing his motherfuckin’ flap sometimes—”

“No fucking _shit_ he does. Did he seriously tell me his name?”

Aw, fuck. That rule, seriously? You forgot it even existed. “You can call me Princess fucking Sparkletits if you want!” you holler. “Ain’t no thang!”

Claws dimple your skin in warning. You’re as tall or taller than Kanaya is, but she carries you with the distasteful ease of someone holding a suspicious used tissue. You decide a minute of quiet would be good for your health.

Silence fills the hall.

“So, uh.” The raised eyebrow encourages you to consider your next words with extreme care. You consider and mercy-kill a few light remarks about performance anxiety. “I guess that could have gone better.”

Kanaya—sweet, awkward Kanaya, who thinks tie-dye is badass and taxidermy is childish, who’s one of your only successful tutors of snuggletimes sans violence or sex jokes even though her sex jokes are works of deadpan art—turns and flings you across the floor like she’s tossing out the end of a rolled-up rug she doesn’t much like.

You bounce, not comfortably, and miss cracking your head on a recuperacoon by an inch. By the time you’ve reinflated your lungs, she’s shut and locked the respiteblock door.

“I’m sorry!” you wheeze. “I forgot, okay?”

Her despair is palpable. “Dave. It was the _first rule_.”

“And then you spent the rest of the month teaching me how to please my man!” you point out. “It’s been like studying for a kindergarten bar exam in feelings, sharing, and playing nice. We don’t do that shit in La Casa De Los Strideros, sensei, cut me some fucking slack.”

_Thud._ You’re pretty sure that’s the sound of forehead meeting wall.

“Are you not a mammal?” she says, evenly and quietly, like someone trying very hard not to look for their biggest two-headed axe. “Were you not raised by mammals of your own species who are fluent in a common language and generally a match in body and mental capability for the conciliatory needs of their young?”

(You remember her describing her lusus as a giant semi-empathic caterpillar. You wince and pray for death.)

“Is it _completely_ out of the question to expect you of _some_ degree of mammalian mastery in the art of _emotional and physical fucking comfort?_ ”

You thump your own head into the floor. “Irony,” you tell her, “is the harshest of mistresses.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to BirchBow for letting me play with this setting + this scenario. 
> 
> Title from "Genie in a Bottle", by Christina Aguilera, because Dave leaks irony on the meta level.


End file.
